Smiling With Electric Faces
by prouvaires
Summary: -his hand burns like starlight against her skin, and she still won't look at him.- LilyTeddy


**Disclaimer: **If I owned Harry Potter, I would never have lumbered Harry's poor kid with a name like "Albus Severus," and Hermione would have ended up with Draco Malfoy.

**Pairing: **LilyTeddy

**Rating: **T

**Words: **1,238

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She sort of loves him. It's a pointless kind of love, really. After all, she's sixteen and he's twenty-seven, and he's married besides. But he's been eating dinner round at her house four nights a week for as long as she can remember, and she knows him so well she could draw him in her sleep.

She knows that he loves Victoire and hates snakes and likes Cap'n Crunch (it's his guilty pleasure). She knows that when his hair turns that special shade of blue he's thinking about his parents and how much he wished they were around; and she knows when he retreats into the study with her father that they're discussing Remus and James and Sirius, and that her father loves him because he's a beautiful mix of Tonks and Remus that Harry wouldn't trade for the world.

They're all round to dinner one night, but she's refusing to come downstairs. As she sits on her bed, she sighs. Her knees are drawn up to her chest, her forehead resting on them, her hair falling down around her face like a curtain of fire, shielding her from the outside world.

She hears the door creak open, and lifts her face a fraction to see who it is. A shock of dark brown hair greets her, and she buries her face again. He's the last (only) person she wants to see.

"Lils, what's the matter?" he asks softly, putting a gentle hand on her leg. It burns like starlight against her skin, even through the denim of her jeans, and she still won't look at him.

"Nothing," she lies, and he sighs.

"You know you can tell me, right?"

She has to take a deep breath, because he can't _ever _know. "I know."

He sighs again, and she raises her chin ever-so-slightly to see that his hair is that wonderful shade of deep blue, and that he's gazing up at the wall behind her bed, looking at the photo of his father and her grandfather and their Uncle Sirius. Her hair falls into her eyes, so she pushes it back, and the movement startles him. He jerks back to face her, and their eyes connect, and a trail of longing so fierce she almost cries out at the force of it burns its way right through her.

There's something impossible reflected in his elderberry-dark eyes, something that doesn't leave as he leans towards her, his fingertips tracing down her cheek. His hair is still the blue of desperate grief as he moves closer to her.

"This can't happen, Lily," he tells her, his face deadly serious, and she nods and kisses him anyway. His lips part against hers, a low, guttural groan escaping from his throat as she pulls him down on top of her, her lips fastening on his neck, his chest, his mouth as he drags his hands through her hair.

"I love you," she breathes against his ear as they tear each other's clothes away. He pauses, and raises himself up to look her right in the eye.

"We can't do this, Lily," he tells her, and because she wants to cry she reaches and pulls him into her, and as he moans and moves with her she touches heaven and hell and everything in between in the same instant.

When he rolls off her, exhausted, she lies gasping for breath, feeling him on her skin and breathing in his scent, and she's too tired and satiated to be upset. From the floor below, a ripple of laughter swells through the floorboards, and suddenly he's scrambling for his clothes, the realisation flooding through him.

"I can't _do _this," he cries as he struggles into his trousers. "I can't do this to Victoire, Lily."

She sits up and reaches over to pull on a long shirt.

"I'm not asking you to," she says (although she wishes she was brave enough to do just that), and he pulls his jumper over his head, crossing the room towards her with quick, sure strides, and captures her lips in a kiss again.

"I'm so sorry," he breathes against her mouth, and then he's gone. Just like that.

She sort of hates him.

It's a pointless kind of hate, really. After all, he'll never leave his wife, and she's just a young woman with not enough style and too much personality for him. He's found his perfect match in Victoire, and she's left to pick up the pieces he's left her in.

She dyes her hair that special shade of blue his hair goes. Her parents rant and rave at her about it, but it's worth it when the next time he sees her he goes white and angry, and she feels a little stab of satisfaction run through her when his wife asks him what the matter is, and he can't tell her, just hold Lily's eyes and glare. This makes her happy. If she's broken, she doesn't see what right he has not to be.

She meets a boy, and he's a good kind of glue to hold her together. She tells him she loves him, and he asks her to marry him, and because she doesn't care anymore she says yes.

She's only watching one face during the ceremony, and that's Teddy's. Next to him, his wife dandles a little baby on her lap, and his hair has turned the exact same shade as hers. As her new husband presses his lips against hers, Teddy gets up and strides out of the church, leaving his son screaming with his wife.

She abandons her husband as soon as she can and rushes to find him. No matter what she pretends, she doesn't want to see him hurt – it's more than she can bear. She finds him eventually, leaning against a balcony railing, staring at the clouds.

"Why?" he asks huskily without turning around, and she's overwhelmed and stamps her foot.

"Because I couldn't wait for _you _my whole life!" she cries, and she's going to storm away when his hand captures her wrist and his lips fasten onto hers like a drowning man.

"I can't do this," he says, and she scowls, lashing out at him.

"You say that _every _time, Teddy!"

"I mean, I can't live without you," he corrects himself hurriedly, and she freezes. He drops to his knees before her, his hands on her waist, and his eyes are fervoured, his hair still matching hers.

"I love you, Lily Ginevra Potter. I'll leave everything I have to be with you, if you'll have me."

She's crying again, but this time with relief. "Of course I'll have you," she promises, twining her arms around his neck. "How could I not?"

He kisses her again, softly and sweetly, and three months later, with their divorces filed away, they're standing in a registry office holding hands in front of the magistrate, and her hair is back to red and his is back to brown, and his dark eyes are glittering as he turns to her and takes her as his wife.

"I love you," she murmurs to him that night as they lie intertwined, his arms around her.

"Forever," he agrees, and she falls asleep with him curled around her, her hair flowing over them both like a river of fire.

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End file.
